I confess that while I have been reading today, I have also spent an inordinate amount of time in front of my monitor. S sent me a link, via M, to a photography page. There is a lot more here than I have time to properly peruse. However, I did see some interesting images. I find it an interesting contrast that he seems to divide his time between forts, studio nudes, and nudes in nature. Well, you can see for yourself what he qualifies as far as body types are concerned. I was somewhat startled by a picture in the couples portfolio of a man in the forground, a woman in the background, showing their lower torso from behind. After so many hairless women, and was glad to see a bit of variety. My curiosity drove me to look into his philosophy behind seeking models. (I can't link to the actual pages, but look in his 'About Modelling' section, and also at the 'Working with the Nude' link at the bottom of that page). While I applaud his ideas behind financial reimbursment vs. payment with results from the photoshoot, I still find aspects of his work decidedly problematic. I began to think of contrasts, or comparisons, and Mary Pratt, another Eastern Canadian artist came to mind. She also does work with female nudes. She usually works from photographs into paintings. Her portrayal of female nudes is very different. While some may say at time the differences are only subtle, I think, they are significant. On this page there is a portrait she did of Donna, and although it is not clear on the computer, the model's socklines are made visible in the painting, which could so easily have been left out. In another portrait, based on a photograph of a model her husband took, she painted in the imprint of the model's blue jeans, still visible in the painting. This makes them incredibly real. The photographs of Eric Boutilier-Brown I find a little too idealizing, for all that he claims his models are not professional, and would not qualify as such. Not only the women he choosed to photograph, but what about them he photographs, and avoids. (See again, his section on working with the nude). Anyway, that is my two cents for today. I would love to hear any responses in other blog entries, since you cannot leave them here. TTFN

Hey this is a great site! I never thought of looking on the web for this stuff. I hope I can find a copy somewhere in this town of another one of these books. They are not available online, it would seem. Not that I would want to buy them that way anyway. Independent bookstores! That is the way to go! I have yet to check out the ones downtown Kingston. Perhaps that can be my outing this weekend. But then I will be tempted to buy something. But it is good to know what they have, of course. In some ways I don't want to look at books for pleasure. As if I haven't had enough of them already with school work. All I do is sit in various places in the house, (my only form of variety) and read books. Heavy books. Deep, hard to read, scholarly nonsense books. But, hey, who am I kidding? Part of me loves it, or I wouldn't be here, right? Or is it just better than facing the real world? Hmm. Well, it is better than pouring coffee. Although sometimes I wouldn't agree. Of course I used to read school books on my breaks at work. Many the day I was reading amid the tables of customers, the din of clinking coffee cups and spoons, and the chatter of old ladies and business men. Or better yet in the back on an evening shift, when the kitchen was empty, and blissfully ... ... silent . Sigh, the simpler days...but this is great, really, just more pressure, more reading. And more and more and more ... :)

Wow, who could imagine a better evening. Alone in the kitchen, baking, cooking, with nothing but CBC Radio for company. And what is even better, my faith, or rather hope, in the importance of my chosen field of study has been renewed. Even a lowly MA student of religion, much, I might fancy, like myself, was the guest of As It Happens. How exciting. Sadly, they don't have the listings for tonight yet, so I can't go research exactly who it was. The other exciting programme was on Ideas. Of course Ideas is always exciting, but again, a spiritual, ethical, compassionate theme to the material gave me hope that the things I am concerned with are of concern to others too, and of enough concern to merit the CBC's attention. It didn't hurt any that Jean Vanier sounded just like Ralph Fiennes, from the English Patient, over the radio. To hear such a voice, speaking to eloquently about spiritual matters, well, I am sure you can imagine. One woman at the conference even commented that when he spoke it had a prayer like quality to it. Here I would say that it would be worth the extra to buy the tape rather than the transcript. I really wonder, does any library out there buy copies of Ideas transcripts for the benefit of us academics? There is so much good material there. I hope someone is keeping it for posterity.
And here is something interesting, the adventures of Diesel, the baby black spruce, across Canada. I liked the scenary, very familiar. God but Canada can be beautiful. I have driven the entire highway also, though not in one long trip. A problem inherant in living in central Canada, one among many.
All this optimism about my field of study is highly necessary after the much more pessimistic converstation I had with one of my profs today. He suggested that there are not likely to be many jobs in the field, and that I should seriously (re)consider what I hoped to do with my MA. Sounds like the woman on AIH is working for the government now. I wonder how that works, or if she is just filling time and space now that her schooling is done. I hope not. I just hope.
Oh, and Martin, about your article of actual GOOD news... they talked about that tonight too. Apparently the shrinking size of the hole in the ozone is just a strange phenomenon of weather, entirely seasonal and not permanent, and really only of benefit to the penguins down in Antartica, who won't be exposed to quite so severe UV rays as a result. Good news for the penguins I guess.